Mike Sholars: Targeting a ‘racist’ costume party is a lose-lose situation for activists

Targeting ‘racist’ costume party is losing situation for activists

Just to be clear: every costume party is at least slightly idiotic. There’s no good way to defend a recent “Cowboys and Indians” costume party that was swarmed with angry protesters at a Toronto bar. But it’s another matter entirely to assert that the party (which was a themed birthday party not organized by the bar, and attended mostly by young British tourists) was intentionally designed to be racist, or that it’s significantly worse than any other themed party, for that matter.

Themed parties, a staple social event for twenty-somethings looking to add a certain je ne c’est quoi to the usual agenda of standing around and drinking, are a complex construct. Once you leave childhood behind, there’s an understandable stigma attached to playing dress-up. Halloween, for example, goes from a Toddlers and Tiaras-esque competition in which the cutest children are awarded with candy, to a strange pseudosexual ordeal where the best-dressed adults are awarded with attention (and also candy). For the majority of people, the act of putting on a costume requires a healthy dose of ironic detachment. Everyone involved generally knows that they might be a bit old for that type of thing, but there’s comfort in numbers.

Costume parties reward hard work and effort, but they also need to have a fairly accessible theme; hence, stereotypes. They’re easy to grasp, easy to reproduce, and allow for variable degrees of attention to detail. You could dress up as a generic cowgirl, or as a historically-accurate Calamity Jane. The choice is yours.

None of these parties will win awards for advancing societal discourse. From “CEOs and Corporate Hoes” to “Anything but clothes,” each themed party comes with its own shortlist of offensive trappings. Cultural holidays fare no better, with St. Patrick’s Day and the Day of the Dead providing an easy excuse for partygoers to wear shamrocks and sombreros, respectively. The multicultural nature of Canada in general and Toronto specifically means that every culture is fair game to be interpreted in a shallow, inaccurate way.

The important thing to remember was that this was not a party aimed to denigrate First Nations people or to celebrate their horrific treatment. It was simply a historically-inaccurate party where adults dressed up like children and got drunk. Objectors, who learned of the party through social networking, rushed en masse to confront the partygoers and snatch the cheap imitation headdresses from their noggins.

Who wins in this situation? Do the drunk patrons learn anything about the very real struggle of First Nations people? Did the individuals who rushed out on a Saturday night to stop a party win any sympathetic voices to their cause? The answer is almost certainly, no.

They brought protest tactics to a party. They were not exercising their right to organize and protest to stop a hateful anti-First-Nations demonstration, but to stop a local bar from hosting some guests that had shown up, of their own volition, in costume to celebrate a double birthday. The ability to criticize and challenge institutionalized and casual racism is a right to be celebrated and championed, but this was far from that.

The party wasn’t a celebration of racism; no one was wearing blackface, for instance. It wasn’t the most tasteful or intelligent party ever held, but show me a costume party that isn’t at some level juvenile. That’s the entire point of a themed party: an opportunity for people who know better to dress up and act like they don’t. And while a tragic amount of casual racism was historically enforced by societal norms (when’s the last time you saw Song of the South?), there’s danger in swooping down to condemn every stereotype as full-blown racism. It can (and will) distract from legitimate struggles against institutionalized prejudice, and it also sets the stage for characters like Arun Smith, who prefer to destroy anything they find offensive.

If you’re going to pick a fight, a birthday party guest with a cap gun isn’t the most sympathetic target.